IndiGo meltdown: Rahul hits out at govt, blames its ‘monopoly model’ for breakdown

A full-blown political storm erupted on Friday over 1,000 IndiGo flights were cancelled across the country, leaving passengers stranded without basic amenities and fares shooting up overnight.

The Opposition alleged that the government’s “match-fixing monopoly model” had pushed India’s largest airline into a state of collapse.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said, “India deserves fair competition, not cornered markets built for a few. The current crisis is the cost of this government’s monopoly model and a natural outcome of a system crafted to protect a handful of corporate interests.”

Party spokesperson Pawan Khera also weighed in, saying the chaos at airports was the direct consequence of the government allowing the sector to slip into a monopoly or duopoly. He said while the government once promised that people wearing slippers would board planes, the reality today was that shoes and slippers were being exchanged between passengers and the IndiGo staff amid the spiralling disruption.

Khera accused the Centre of handing the country’s airline sector to a concentrated corporate grouping. “When two people will run the party, two will run the government, and two will run the business, this is what will happen,” he said, adding that 92 per cent of the aviation market was now being controlled by IndiGo and Tata-owned airlines.

He alleged that the government had bowed down before them, forcing the withdrawal of the new passenger safety guidelines under pressure from operators.

Inside Parliament, the chorus grew louder as Congress MP Pramod Tiwari raised the issue of mass cancellation of flights during zero hour in the Rajya Sabha, calling it a matter of propriety after “over 600 flights vanished from the schedule without explanation”.

He said millions of people were being left in limbo, while even MPs were struggling to travel for constituency duties.

Tiwari welcomed the Rajya Sabha Chairman’s direction to the Civil Aviation Minister to brief the House, and blamed the crisis on what he termed the government’s “monopoly policy”.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said she had submitted a ‘calling attention’ notice, but received no clear response from the ministry. “The minister held a meeting late at night and issued directives, but what is the use if the cancellations continue at the same scale the next morning? If the ministry is not responsible for rising airfare and passenger grievances, then it should shut down,” she said.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra reinforced the monopoly charge, saying the country had been reduced to a system where “most things belong to a few people”. She added that this was unhealthy for both economy and democracy.

Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram sought an urgent statement from Union Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu. He said the ongoing disruption was a “national crisis” that demanded full disclosure of what triggered the meltdown across IndiGo’s network.

On the ground, scenes of distress continued to pour in from airports. One aggrieved father lashed out at the ground staff after hours of delays, asking for a sanitary pad for his daughter because basic amenities were unavailable. Several passengers said they had spent nights on terminal floors without food, water or information from the airline.

With travellers scrambling for alternatives, fares surged across routes. A passenger said he had to pay nearly triple the usual cost to rebook himself on another carrier after IndiGo abruptly cancelled his flight.